Mario Testino is a fashion photographer known for his portrait shots in Vogue and GQ magazines. His photos mainly focus on highlighting the looks and attractiveness of models. Many of his shots are taken in a studio or outdoor locations like a beach. The models are usually posing to showcase the clothes they are wearing. Testino uses a fast shutter speed to allow the models to change poses quickly without overexposing the images in low light. He also employs a narrow depth of field to blur out backgrounds. While the photographer likes Testino's black and white theme photos, some shots could be improved by getting the full model in frame instead of cutting off parts of them.

1. Ryan Sharman
Unit 57: Photography and
Photographic Practice
Research of other photographers
work (P1, M1, D1)
Photographer: Mario Testino

2. Ryan Sharman
Theme or focus of images
When searching for fashion photographers I did a very basic search into google and found this
photographer Mario Testino. He has done many fashion photo shoots for big magazine
companies including GQ and Vogue. The photos that I researched and found are all very
similar in some way. When looking through these images I identified that most of them were
portrait shots and this is the type of photography he does. Most of the shots focus on the looks
and attractiveness of the model this is common within fashion photography. The photos would
either be taken in a studio or at a location for example like a beach in the second picture.
When it comes to what’s happening in the photographs in all 4 the models are posing and
while doing this showing off their clothes and what they are wearing.
Composition
In all the images above the photographer decided to get the clothes in the shot because this is
the type of shoot he is doing. Clothes are the subject of the photo because he is doing a
fashion photo shoot. If the photographer decided to zoom out I think in certain photos you
would see a lot more, for example in the fourth picture the photographer is very close to the
model and for him to move back you would see more of the models arms and maybe more of
the background and this could show off where the models location is. When it comes to
cropping of photos sometimes this can be important because when the photo was taken and
when it goes into editing when reviewing these pictures it could look too busy or something that
was not needed in the shot. Therefore the photographer would crop the photo getting rid of all
the unwanted things in the background for example.

3. Ryan Sharman
Techniques used
When looking at all the photos I have chosen and comparing them together I think they all
have the same aspect. Now moving on the techniques which are used within these
photographs first of all there is shutter speed. I think the shutter speed in all of the shot would
be very fast because it gives the photographer quick shots and allows the models to change
poses for example. Now that the shutter speed is fast not much light would be let into the
camera, this meaning the images won’t come out over exposed. When it comes to rule of
thirds I personally don’t think it was used on these photos. Finally onto depth of field I would say
for all the photos they quite a narrow depth of field because of how unfocused the
background is.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Moving on to the strengths and weaknesses of the photos, personally I like them all but there
are certain things I would have done differently and I will now explain them below. First of all
and this is what I think for most of the photos is that he doesn’t have all of the model in shot and
this really bothers me because what’s the point in not shooting a whole body for example and
leaving out say a little bit of the head. For him to improve it would definitely make a difference
if he got the whole model in frame and not cut off the top of their heads. Other than the whole
cropping issues I have no other dislikes with his work only now positive, one of them being the
theme of the black and white photos. I like this idea because black and white photos now
days are not very common and also the way he works the dark clothes with the dark props/
make up etc. and I think it works really well. When it comes onto how he can influence my
work, I definitely will take an interest in the whole dark and black and white theme, because I
think it just works really well and would love to interpret it into my work.